Restaurants and cafés in Valletta, St Julian’s, Sliema and elsewhere saw many clients return on Monday as catering establishments reopened after a two-month shutdown.
Restaurants and cafés were closed down in March amid a spike in Covid-19 cases but opened for business again on Monday, and business on the first day was good.
For now, they can only open until 5pm, and can only provide a takeaway service from then onwards, but they will be allowed to serve clients until midnight as from 24 May.
Bars and clubs can reopen on 7 June, according to relaxed measures announced by the government last week.
In Valletta, many establishments in Republic Street, Merchants Street and other areas were quite busy on Monday, although they were not operating at full capacity.
The Malta Independent spoke to the owners of Caffe Cordina in Merchants Street and Kantina Café, which is situated right next to St John’s Co-Cathedral.
Kantina owner Julian Galea said that the first day after reopening was going quite well. Most of the day’s clients were Maltese. “Many of our clients have returned. It seems like they missed us. It’s going quite well and hopefully the pace will pick up.”
Galea said he looks forward to the day when establishments can open all day. He explained that opening only for lunch does not cover all the costs. “We’re not making money, just covering basic expenses.”
Asked about the upcoming round of Covid vouchers, Galea said these will undoubtedly help.
“We did quite well with the first round. The only concern this time is that they will coincide with the reopening of tourism, so clients will all come at once and there might be more demand than we have seating capacity. It would have been better to issue the vouchers a bit earlier.”
Galea said the past two months were “very tough.”
“We did operate a takeaway service, but the volume was not that high. It was not even enough to cover employee salaries, just to keep us from closing down and switching off the equipment which, in the long-term, can cause damage. We now hope that the worst is behind us.”
Linda Cordina of Caffe Cordina said the first day was a “good day”, with people happy to be out and about. “They missed the café culture.”
“It’s been a very tough year for all of us in catering so we hope to see Covid numbers continue to go down so that we can continue to operate.”
Like Galea, Cordina said the takeaway service the establishment had been providing was not enough to cover costs. “Valletta has been particularly hard hit by this pandemic. Although we have a local clientele, it is a very touristic location, so we have suffered a lot. Thankfully we have our local clients to keep us going.”
Cordina said the vouchers will help give business a boost, “but it will never make up for what we have lost.”
She hoped that things would continue to improve and that UK tourists would soon be able to travel to Malta.
“We also hope that operators like us don’t suffer the consequences of other people who do not abide by the rules, because we’re very conscientious about following the protocols. It was tough having to shut down again and we hope this was the last one.”
MHRA expresses ‘relief’
The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) expressed “relief” at the re-opening of restaurants, “a cornerstone of the tourism sector and a critical facility for hotel operations.”
It said, “today is an important step towards kickstarting the economy and protecting people’s livelihoods in this sector. Our businesses have suffered terribly and now deserve to succeed having been extremely responsible and patient during this difficult time.”
The re-opening of restaurants is a major relief also for hotels which so far have been constrained to serve meals in hotel rooms, it said.
“We appreciate that during the lockdown restrictions, Government supported our operations with grants, in particular the wage subsidies, to ensure that we survive during this extremely difficult period and accordingly be ready to reopen when the right time comes. Therefore, today for us is an important step in the right direction as we prepare to welcome back our customers, but support needs to continue. We are not out of the woods yet, and some of the announced protocols and measures make it very challenging for businesses to operate and to be financially sustainable.”
The association welcomed the announcement by PM Robert Abela on Sunday that the next round of economic stimulus vouchers, which will give €100 to every resident in Malta to spend at retail and catering establishments, are set to be released on 7 June.
MHRA President Tony Zahra said: “This is very good news for our restaurants and other businesses within the hospitality and leisure sector that have either been closed, or operating under a limited service, for the past months. Now it is time to prudently get back on our feet and whilst offer back the opportunity to all to meet, dine and enjoy life together in a safe environment, we continue to restabilize our business operations in a sustainable manner.”
Photos: Giuseppe Attard